Vatican book series focuses on Eastern Catholic churches

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The story of the Christian family includes tales of how its Eastern and Western branches separated, grew apart, and attempted reconciliation.
It is also the story of heroic faith, steadfastness and yearning for unity in the face persecution, and of the challenges and rewards of allowing differences in culture to enrich the whole family rather than divide it.

All of those stories, told from the point of view of Eastern Catholics, are recounted in Italian in the three-volume, 1,200-page opus, “Oriente Cattolico” (“The Catholic East”), published by the Congregation for Eastern Churches. An English translation is underway.

Pulling the volumes together took 14 years and involved dozens of scholars, bishops and the heads of the Eastern Catholic churches. The last time the congregation published a comprehensive volume about all the churches it assists was in 1974.

The work was coordinated by Paulist Father Ronald G. Roberson, associate director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. Prior to this project, he authored “The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey,” and has updated that seven times.

“It took so long because of the methodology we adopted,” he said. “First, we asked an expert to produce a draft, then it went to a second expert for comments, then to the head of the church being described, and then to the congregation for final approval.”

In the Catholic Church, with some 1.3 billion members, the Eastern Catholic churches have about 17.7 million members.

The Ukrainian Catholic Church is the largest with almost 4.5 million, and the Syro-Malabar Church, with more than 4.2 million, is a close second. The smallest “church entities” in the book are the Byzantine apostolic exarchates of Greece and Turkey, which together count just over 6,000, and the Russian Catholics, who are believed to number about 3,000.

The volumes present the history and current makeup of the Eastern churches, grouped according to their structures, and lists them as:
— Six “patriarchal churches,” that is, those with a patriarch and a high level of self-rule, although in communion with the pope. They are the Coptic, Syriac, Melkite, Maronite, Chaldean and Armenian Catholic churches.
— Four led by major archbishops and having most of the autonomy of the patriarchal churches. They are the Ukrainian, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara and Romanian Catholic churches.
— Four “metropolitan churches” led by archbishops. They are the Eastern Catholics of Ethiopia and Eritrea; the Ruthenian Catholics in the United States; the Slovak Catholics; and the Hungarian Catholics.
— Nine Eastern Catholic communities with eparchies or apostolic exarchates, which are similar, respectively, to dioceses and apostolic vicariates in the Latin-rite church. These are the Italo-Albanian Eparchy of Italy; the Eparchy of Krizevci, Croatia; the Ruthenian Eparchy of Mukachevo, Ukraine; the Exarchate of Sophia, Bulgaria; the exarchates of Greece and Turkey; Exarchate of Macedonia; the Exarchate of the Czech Republic; the Exarchate of Serbia; and the exarchic Monastery of Santa Maria of Grottaferrata, Italy.
— Three Eastern Catholic communities without their own hierarchy: Byzantine Russian Catholics, Belarusian Catholics and Eastern-rite Catholics in southern Albania.
In the preface for “Oriente Cattolico,” Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, congregation prefect, said the book was designed to make sure Catholics “know, honor and love the churches of the East that are in full communion with the apostolic see of Rome,” to present a resource for consultation about the Eastern Catholic churches and to pay “homage to the churches of the Christian East — Catholic and Orthodox — and their numerous martyrs and confessors of the faith.”

Unfortunately, he wrote, “similar tragedies are repeated today and the Christians of the East pay a heavy tribute to the hatred that persecutes Christians or divides them.”

The divisions and efforts to heal them received special treatment in the volumes and not just on the level of the international Catholic dialogues with the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox churches.

The book, for example, has a separate chapter on ecumenism and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, highlighting the code’s insistence on the obligation of all Catholics to work and pray for unity.

The book acknowledges that historically many attempts were made to “Latinize” the Eastern churches in communion with Rome.

The chapter on canon law insists Eastern Catholic communities contribute to Christian unity by being themselves and maintaining their liturgical, spiritual, theological and disciplinary traditions, which can include having both celibate and married priests.

For the past 50 years, the popes have insisted that, as the task of healing divisions in the Christian family proceeds, respect for the identity and heritage of the Eastern churches demonstrates that the re-establishment of full unity would not mean smaller churches would be asked to sacrifice their identity.

The Italian volumes cost $180, plus postage. To order, email press@orientecattolico.com. The digital edition is available on Kindle for $90. Go to www.orientecattolico.com for more information.

Caption:
The cover of the new Italian-language Vatican publication “Oriente Cattolico” (CNS Photo)

As published in Horizons, April 15, 2018.Sign up for the Horizons e-newsletter.